The most pervasive, long-lasting, and heavily funded divide in the Texas Republican Party began as a result of the actions of 11 pseudo-Republican state legislators who teamed up with the Democrat House caucus to remove Midland’s Tom Craddick as speaker of the House and instead install self-professed “moderate Republican” Joe Straus of San Antonio as speaker.
On 11 January, 2003, Craddick became the first Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives in more than 130 years after voters finally shifted the majority of the House to legislators representing the Grand Old Party in the general election of 2002.
In the 2007 session, a few liberal, business-as-usual Republicans tried and failed to unseat Craddick as speaker but worked unceasingly with Democrats and the press to demean and denigrate Craddick in order that they might install a more Democrat-friendly speaker in the next term. Near the end of that 2007 legislative session, a small number of RINO lawmakers tried a direct coup d’etat on Speaker Craddick from the House floor and failed.
In January of 2009, 11—yes, you read that right, only 11—House Republicans made a deal with the Democrat Caucus to overthrow Tom Craddick as speaker and elect liberal Republican Joe Straus as speaker of the House. It only took 11, because the state was more balanced at the time, and Democrats enjoyed victories riding Barack Obama’s coattails. The House had 76 Republicans and 74 Democrats coming in for the 81st Legislature.
Straus then appointed 18 Republicans as committee chairmen—most being strongly anti-conservative RINOs—and 16 Democrats as committee chairmen.
This is where it all began.
Since that time, almost every well-funded conservative group that has existed came about and got big funding because of this turncoat action by pseudo-Republican reps and the stopping and slow-walking of mainstream GOP legislation to which it led.
The historical lesson of this and the many years following is that Austin-insider-power types effectively created most of the opposition about which they have spent so much time complaining to supporters and the press. In just the past few weeks, yet another pro-Republican honesty group has been founded and seeded with a whopping $20 million by Amarillo’s Alex Fairly—the insider-power crowd just can’t stop creating opposition to their personal power preservation and self-serving wheeling and dealing.
Don’t be sucked in to a false argument this time around that pretends the race for speaker of the House is a race between Dustin Burrows and David Cook. The race is about the basic idea that the leader of the House—who controls the flow of all legislation to an almost dictatorial level—should be chosen, or not, solely from within the majority party’s caucus—in this case the House Republican Caucus.
Dustin Burrows once believed strongly in this, going so far as to help write and pass the very caucus rules he has now chosen to ignore. More so, Burrows once signed his name to a written pledge saying that he would “commit to supporting the Republican speaker candidate who wins the majority of the votes in the Republican Caucus,” and that such would be done “without Democrat influence.”
Now that Burrows wants to be speaker of the House, none of that matters. Instead he and his backers walked out of the caucus meeting held to determine a unified speaker candidate after he failed to win even a simple majority after the first two rounds of voting.
The caucus continued to follow the rules Burrows had helped write and pass years ago and voted to name State Representative David Cook as its candidate for speaker of the House.
Burrows, on the other—or should I say left—hand went to the Democrat Caucus to gain their support so that he, like every speaker since the Straus coup d’etat, could gain the brass ring and all its power with Democrat votes on the House floor when the session convenes in January.
This very issue of the House leader being chosen by the minority opposition party, which is handed key committee chairmanships and the considerable power that goes with those gavels in return for its support for speaker, is the longest-running serious divide in Texas Republican politics. It is what is behind much of the enmity and nastiness in Austin and across the state that has led to the death of much good legislation, many otherwise unnecessary and expensive special sessions of the legislature, and brutal primary challenges, and has otherwise roiled the Texas Republican Party and legislative scene with division and even hatred.
That my state representative, who when elected was a vocal advocate of ending this practice, would now put his personal ambition and desire for power and status ahead of ending this pernicious practice—as we were finally on the cusp of doing this session—is despicable and condemnable.
This is not a race between Burrows and Cook. It is a race between right and wrong.
Wrong has won every session since 2009, always because the personal ambitions of some have proven more important to them than uniting the GOP to govern in the way that best benefits all Texans.
This is a commentary published with the author’s permission. If you wish to submit a commentary to Texas Scorecard, please submit your article to submission@texasscorecard.com.
